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Growing Resiliency empowers all children to succeed by promoting literacy and resilience through high impact tutoring.

The Challenge

Only 44% of Brown County students met 3rd-grade reading proficiency targets as measured by the 2022/2023 WI State Forward Exam.

Children struggling in reading more frequently drop out or fail to graduate from high school and go on to live a life of poverty.

It’s a problem. It’s a problem right here in Green Bay.

Proficient readers are more likely to find employment, to earn more, and to support themselves better over their lifetimes.

Brookings Institution and the U.S. Department of Education

The Solution Growing Resiliency

Growing Resiliency addresses literacy needs by joining forces with other community organizations to provide high-impact tutoring while also promoting a mindset of resilience, viewing challenges and failures as stepping stones that ultimately will lead to success.

It takes collaboration. It takes commitment. It takes community.

The Process Collaboration, Mentoring & Tutoring

Growing Resiliency

  • Collaborates with local universities to recruit students as tutors while school districts identify children who they believe would benefit from the program.
  • Provides tutor coaches, with a background in reading intervention, to oversee tutoring sessions, meet with tutors one-on-one to create individualized goals for children, discuss their progress, and deepen tutor understanding of theory and practice in literacy and resilience.

Tutors

  • Work one-on-one with students to promote literacy skills and resiliency strategies, helping children understand that sustained effort leads to success.

Children

  • Experience immediate gains in both literacy and resiliency with the potential for lasting effects.

The Difference Creating a Mindset of Resilience

Growing Resiliency

  • Goes beyond academics to help instill a mindset of confidence and fortitude: concepts you can’t learn in a textbook.
  • Applies the concept of high-impact tutoring, which consistently leads to large improvements in learning outcomes for a wide range of students. It involves:
    • Alignment with school curriculum
    • Sustained relationships between tutors and students
    • Weekly time commitment
    • Close monitoring of student progress
    • Supervision and guidance of tutors by trained educators

One of the greatest gifts we can give children is to teach them to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning.

Carol Dweck

Remarkable Journey Discover the inspiring journey of Growing Resiliency, Inc.

Our founder, Pat Heafy, was honored as a 2024 NE Wisconsin finalist for the Nexstar Media Group, Inc. Remarkable Women series. Learn more about the incredible story behind our organization by watching the video. You can also read the article by visiting WeAreGreenBay.com.

In January 2025, FOX 11 Community Cares and Nicolet Bank sponsored a public service announcement about Growing Resiliency. You can see Pat and some of the tutors here.

Lavender Mission Field Farms

Find unique gifts of lavender for yourself or others! Lavender Mission Field Farms is a shop established specifically to help fund Growing Resiliency. 10% of all sales go directly to the Growing Resiliency program to uphold its vision and further its mission.